"...“Everything is a workaround, just about,” Perez told employees at the website Gawker last year. “I’m not waiting for a functional Congress to do my job. And the good news is, I have ample tools in my toolbox to do my job,” he told The Washington Post. His mission, as the Post describes it, is to “shore up workers’ rights with the regulatory equivalents of duct tape and string.”

"...An institutional ball of energy, Perez comes to meetings armed with data, facts, and ideas, but he aims to listen more than speak. He is a quick study; a wonk able to quickly grasp the granular details of an issue and their potential consequences, but also zoom out and see the big picture. “He has a real curiosity, which is very good in a leader. In all my interactions with him, I’ve never felt like he’s come in to just make a speech and leave. He’s really wanted to engage people and ask a lot of questions,” says Sarita Gupta, head of the worker advocacy organization Jobs With Justice. “It’s never the Tom Perez show.”

"...PEREZ IS THE CHILD OF POLITICAL refugees who fled dictator Rafael Trujillo’s vicious rule in the Dominican Republic. His maternal grandfather was the republic’s ambassador to the United States but was exiled after speaking out against the dictatorship’s massacre of thousands of Haitians. Perez’s father, a doctor, also fled the country for the United States, where he went on to serve in the Army as a physician. His parents both ended up in Buffalo, New York. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, Perez had a front-row seat to the devastating effects of deindustrialization that swept through Rust Belt cities. Buffalo was hemorrhaging jobs and its middle class was disintegrating—in the 1970s alone, the city lost more than 100,000 residents. It’s left an impression on him politically as he’s been quick to critique the shortcomings of NAFTA.
This is a long article and covers the vast array of issues that Perez has worked on in his various government positions. Really worth the read!

It's a long detailed article and it's really hard to pick out what to share. Basically the piece tracks Miller from college to his being the warm up guy that was ramping up the crowds before Trump came out to speak at campaign rallies. He was so good at getting the crowd going that I truly believe Trump could have just showed up and drooled and the crowds would have cheered him as the best thing ever. That is a dangerous skill to have.

"...Trump had been coming under fire for his response to the Orlando shooting, and that night in Dallas Miller pivoted from whipping up fear and loathing to whipping up fear and loathing and then calling it love. As the crowd began to chant “Build the wall!” a grinning Miller explained. “We’re going to build that wall high and we’re going to build it tall,” he said. “We’re going to build that wall, and we’re going to build it out of love. We’re going to build it out of love for every family who wants to raise their kids in safety and peace … We’re building it out of love for America and Americans of all backgrounds...”

"...But among this roster of political outsiders, Miller stands out, especially for people who understand the new forces afoot in Republican politics. He's deeply connected to some of the most powerful insurgent threads in the Washington GOP, most notably Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions and the Breitbart media machine. As an aide on Capitol Hill, he was a behind-the-scenes architect of the successful effort to kill comprehensive immigration reform in 2014. And while it’s hard to gauge how much Trump is amenable to influence by anyone—at least, by anyone that he didn’t beget—there is no question that Miller is deep, and serious, on the one question that most drives Trump's unlikely campaign.

Miller’s talent for combining operational zeal with the ability to effectively frame an idea into one devastating laser beam made him a prized Sessions lieutenant in Washington. “When it comes to issues and messaging and policy, there isn’t anybody else that I’ve known that would be as valuable to a presidential campaign as he,” Sessions told me. “Maybe other than Karl Rove...”

"...Miller had always existed at the political margins, but Trump’s rise has allowed him to advance to the vanguard, and he clearly enjoys it. He grins at the podium, he savors the crowd’s reactions, even if they periodically boo him for not turning the stage over to Trump fast enough. “All the anger right underneath the surface just waiting to come through, about what I don’t know,” says a former staffer with the Republican leadership on the Hill. “I’ve seen the videos of him getting the crowd fired up. People that knew him when he was on the Hill, I don’t know how to describe the reactions people had to the videos of him. Maybe creeped out a little bit? Like, what’s going to happen when this guy gets the power?” He pauses as a thought dawns on him. “Oh my God,” he says. “He’s going to find out that I spoke with you and I’m going to end up in a camp somewhere...”

First off...alloo! Long time no see! I hope you are all happy and well.

I'm still having serious health health issues and my diet is crazy boring, so I tend to not think too much about meal planning and fun dishes, and I have been sticking with what will keep me out of the hospital, so I haven't really had much to share with you all. I've been digging back in to my genealogy research again when I feel up to it, and that has led me to a few cool things on youtube that I thought some of you might find interesting!

The first is a channel called Jas. Townsend & SonHe cooks recipes from, and talks about life during the 18th century. I've watched several and have been enjoying them a lot! The main channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandsonAnd this is one of his vids on soldiers and food:

I've just started this one - Victorian Bakers which is a BBC production that brings four modern professionals together to explore baking in the Victorian era. I think there are 3 or 4 episodes and the first is here: